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I stood at my kitchen island one day making an Israeli cheesecake.  It’s the most delicious recipe.  Lemon juice and vanilla bean extract marry to create one amazing combination.  This rich cheesecake is creamy and fills a cinnamon graham crust with cheerful flavors.  Comfort food at its best, it’s the essence of celebration.  My mouth is watering just writing about it.  I wish I could share a slice with you.  

As I slid it into the oven that afternoon, I was thinking of Kookie and Daniela and wishing that I could see them.  That I could feed them.  They both love cheesecake.  Especially my cheesecake.  I smiled as I reminisced about the last time that I’d seen them together.  It had been a while.  Then I remembered how they had met.  It was the cutest story….

Daniela had been eighteen and Kookie twenty-four years old that summer.  Though, in Korean years, he would have been considered twenty-five.  Daniela had traveled to South Korea for the summer study program offered by Seoul University.  She was entering her sophomore year in college.

One beautiful afternoon, she was outside, sitting under a tree, her back pressed against its trunk.  She was feeling sad.   She was terribly lonely.  She’d been in Seoul for two weeks already, and she had yet to make any friends.  She was missing her family.  But mostly, she was dealing with disappointment.  

She had believed that if she could just get to Seoul, she would find it easier to make friends.  But it wasn’t proving true.  Now she was surrounded by people who spoke a language with which she was almost entirely unfamiliar.  Except for BTS lyrics.  And oddly enough, no one’s conversation revolved around those lyrics.

She wondered if there was an alternate reality somewhere in which every word people spoke was found in BTS’s assortment of albums.  And if it wasn’t a word in one of their songs, then it didn’t exist in this BTS World.  She laughed at her fanciful thought.  She was certain that if any of the members lived in that world, it would be Taehyung.  His sense of humor was just quirky enough to place him in a land restricted by BTS lyrics.  Of course, he would be the first one to build a rocket to escape to another even stranger land.  He wasn’t one to endure confinement for long.  Her lips quirked upward as she closed her eyes against the harsh sunlight that had suddenly cut through the puffy clouds to invade her eyes with a piercing light.

That was the very moment that Jungkook came upon her.  He was walking across the campus when he glanced down.  A few feet away, a beautiful girl sat leaning against a tree.  Her luxurious ash brown locks descended in a flowing waterfall down past her shoulders.  Her glasses were pushed up the bridge of her nose, and her eyes were closed.  But she had a dreamy expression on her face.  A countenance that was tilted up towards the sun.  Its rays illuminated her blooming cheeks.  His eyes took in her rosy lips curved upward in a sweet smile.  She looked happy.  He wanted to reach out and touch that feeling.  

He was not happy.  He’d come to the campus to visit an old friend who was struggling with school.  Jungkook had hoped to lift his friend’s spirits, but he’d discovered his friend would not be dissuaded from his depression.  He had, in fact, been drowning his sorrows in alcohol.  Something Jungkook had long ago learned was not a good idea.  It would only make his problems worse.  

Seeing his friend was not open to help, Jungkook had left his dorm room to head towards his car.  It was a bit of a walk to the parking lot, though.  Which is how he had come across Daniela.  As he was about to walk by her, all of a sudden, she opened her eyes, and they locked with his.  

Even from a few feet away, he could tell that her eyes were brown.  He was surrounded by brown eyes, but hers were a mellower shade than his.  And most of his countrymen.  Jungkook was drawn by the look in those captivating eyes.  He wanted to see them up close.  Would she take her glasses off for him?

Without intending to, he veered off the concrete path and walked up to her.  He stood at her feet gazing down at her.  She reciprocated as she stared up at him.

Jungkook?  Was this really Jungkook?  

She couldn’t breathe.  Breathless, she gazed up at him.  She was mesmerized by his easy grin and smiling eyes.  Her eyes also noted that his raven hair was falling in a sweet cascade over his forehead.  Some girls referred to this as “coconut head.”  He was wearing a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt and black jeans.  He had, of course, black combat boots on his feet.  All in all, he looked completely adorable.  But it was his shining, obsidian eyes that pulled her in.  And his glowing, white teeth.  His face had split into a wide grin as he came to a stop in front of her.

“Hi!” he suddenly breathed on her.

“Hi,” she responded shyly.  What did one say to Jungkook when addressed by his amazing presence?  She had no idea.

His chocolate eyes met her nut-brown ones in a smile.  “May I join you?” he asked.

She sat, shocked, for a few moments before she finally nodded.  Jungkook wanted to sit under a tree with her?  Why?  She had no answers.  She simply watched as he closed the distance between them and sat next to her before leaning back against the tree.  He tilted his head back and closed his eyes as he enjoyed the warm sun on his face for a few moments.

“I can see why you were smiling,” he murmured, his eyes still shut.  “The sun is warm on my skin.  The air smells like the sweetest of flowers.  I can imagine the sky so blue even with my eyes closed.  It’s a perfect summer day, isn’t it?”

He was speaking in English.  How had he known that she wouldn’t understand much Korean?

Still at a loss for words, she just stared at his beautiful profile.  Her eyes slid over his lovely eyelids, then down the length of his nose, riding the curve at the end before meeting up with his pretty lips.  How many times had she imagined kissing those lips?  

Just then, his eyes popped open, and he glanced at her.  He grinned when he discovered her studying his face.  She blushed as her eyes met his again.  

“I wasn’t enjoying the weather,” she admitted.

“You weren’t?  Then why were you smiling?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t realize I was.”  She thought back.  “Oh.”

“What?” His lips twitched before a sweet smile stretched across his face.

“I was thinking about how little Korean I know and about how hard it is to make friends here.”

Jungkook’s smile faded.  “Those weren’t happy thoughts at all.”

She shook her head, but she never took her eyes off his.  She couldn’t believe that she was sitting next to Jungkook!  Looking into his gorgeous, obsidian eyes!  Listening to the quiet murmur of his voice in her ear.

“I was actually being quite silly.  I was thinking of Tae and wondering if he had ever imagined a world in which BTS lyrics comprised the entire language.  They’re the only Korean I know, you see.  For the most part.”

Jungkook chuckled.  “That would be a strange world, indeed.”  He began to replay a list of lyrics in his mind.  He shook his head.  “It would definitely limit conversation.  That’s for sure.”  He met her pretty eyes again.  “So, Tae’s your bias, then?”

“What?” Startled, her eyebrows flew heavenward.  Before she could think better of it, she exclaimed in his defense, “No!  You are!”

Genuinely surprised, Jungkook stared at her.  His face had suddenly gone blank.  He looked away from her then.  

Was he embarrassed?  But why would he be?  Half the world’s female population loved Jungkook.  It couldn’t really be much of a surprise that he was her favorite.

“Did I make you feel self-conscious?” she whispered.

Touched by her quiet voice and her sensitivity, he turned his head back towards her.  He smiled.  “I’m still not used to it, I guess.  It’s so strange.  Even now.  To have girls everywhere thinking they like me.  I mean, they don’t even know me.  Not really.  Just the image they see on a screen.  JK!”  He said the last word mockingly.  With a tinge of bitterness.

It surprised her.  For he always seemed to enjoy playing his persona on screen.  But she recognized that he had been playing that game for years.  Trying to please ARMY.  Trying to make his fans happy.  Trying to stay in his role as the Golden Maknae.  Always being the golden boy of BTS.  The youngest sweetheart.

“It must be exhausting,” she commented compassionately.

“What?”

“Always having to be perfect.”

His eyes collided with hers, and he instantly knew that he had met a kindred spirit in her.